One might expect Sile Seoige to have a little-sister complex, or to feel measured against her better-known big sister, Grainne. "No, that ship has sailed," she says firmly. "If anyone had issues with that, it would have been more me than Grainne. Me being the younger one; me being the one who came into TV after Grainne. She wouldn't have had issues. I would have had issues. And I did have issues initially. I kind of felt, 'God, am I ever going to be called Sile in my own right? Am I always going to be known as Grainne's sister?' And I was like, 'Get over it; deal.' And I am. I'm well over it now. I have been for a few years. But particularly in the past year.

"It's funny, we were in town together last weekend, and we were walking along, and there was a group of guys, and they were like, 'Oh, Seoiges, Seoiges!' They were calling Grainne Sile, and me Grainne. And she loves being called Sile, and I love now being called Grainne. In the past, there was a part of me, workwise, that was just -- it was immaturity, I think, it was a lack of confidence, all those things. I think when you get comfortable in yourself, you lose all that nonsense. So I love being compared to Grainne. I think she's gorgeous; I think she's a brilliant person and if anyone thinks I'm like her, happy days. So I'm over that now. There may have been stuff, residue, in the early days but I'm over that now, which is good."

Last year Seoige the younger, now 30, had quite a run of things. It was a year in which, it's easy to speculate, she had to address herself with the stern resolve to "get over it; deal" more than usual. It was a year of endings. In January she finalised the end of her three-year marriage to Glen Mulcahy. Throughout the private break-up and the public announcement, she was appearing daily on live TV, putting on her brave face to man the couch with Grainne.

Later in the year their show, Seoige, which had shifted her career profile from that of a contender on the broadcasting periphery, to one with national exposure, was also terminated, axed from the schedules as a result of a shake-up in RTE.

Sile didn't make any New Year's resolutions. "I kind of think the last year was difficult enough without actually lashing on more 'don't do this, don't do that,'" she says. "If it was a resolution, I'd rather have it a bit more of a positive thing, than don'ts. I'd rather have dos than don'ts. So no, I haven't made any. It's unlikely that I will." For her, 2010 is enough of a landmark. It marks the beginning of a new phase, time to apply the rewards of the hefty load of life experience she notched up in 2009. She's had time to process it, move on, and is now older, wiser, and ready to relaunch.

Seoige may be off the air, and her month-long stint as guest presenter on The Afternoon Show came to naught, but there are interesting professional experiences in store in the new year for steely Sile. She's recording a few strands for No Frontiers; is putting her rich Galway tones into practice as the voice of an innovative new Irish-language voicemail service, available exclusively to Meteor customers; and is going to focus her efforts on building a portfolio of voice-over work, as well as developing some documentary projects.

"Somebody might read this and think, 'She's awful full of herself!'" she begins, in a little apologetic disclaimer. "But I'm actually proud of myself. Because I've been through a lot, but I'm still here. I'm intact, I'm feeling good and I'm still very much the same person. I'm positive. My spirits haven't been dampened -- because it has been a tough year: professionally speaking, personally speaking, obviously -- but, you know, that's the way it goes. That's life. But there's been so much brilliant stuff this year as well, and that's what I'm taking with me."

She has been enjoying the benefit of some sustaining family time over Christmas -- for which the Seoiges were holed up in Grainne's house in Wicklow, with "Mum's dinner, transplanted". Theirs is a close family, quite idyllic by her description. Last Christmas Day they all sat up around the table until 4am, singing, telling stories and generally entertaining one another. No wallflowers in the Seoige household, apparently.

Which is hardly surprising when you consider that it's a family that has produced two of the most high-profile female figures in broadcasting in the country, two women who combine a wholesome, glossy glamour with serious smarts. Like Grainne, Sile is driven and ambitious, and not at the expense of warmth or authenticity: the real person is not lost beneath the professional polish.

Though they were both prepared for it, the end of Seoige came, naturally enough, as a blow to the sisters.

"My own take on it is that that's where Grainne as an older sister came through. She was very protective of me. And I think, if anything, she was more upset about the show finishing, not for herself, but actually for me. And, actually, I felt a great amount of strength from that. But I also felt sorry for her because she was taking it all on. She was trying to absorb all the pain, so that I wouldn't feel it. That's the older-sister thing.

"I think the sadness was that we had realised that we had had a great year and it was sad to see it end," Sile concludes.

She insists that, for her, the greatest loss was not of the professional platform but of the fulfilling experience of working with her sister.

"But I felt very fortunate because if we hadn't got the chance to work together, we might not be as close as we are now. So I felt like, in some ways, the sister I had, I really got her. I really knew what she was about at the end of the year. And I felt, like, 'God, that's brilliant! D'you know what, I'm thankful for the year because now I know her. And I don't just know her as Grainne, older sister. I know her. And she knows me.'"

And as Sile's describing the little rituals they developed through working together -- "she'd be zipping me into my dress, we'd always walk to the floor together" -- suddenly, almost out of nowhere, her eyes fill with tears. She seems as taken by surprise by this outbreak of emotion as I am. The composure in her voice doesn't crack, but her eyes prove slightly trickier to gain control over. "Sorry," she mouths, looking genuinely confounded.

And then the tears are gone, as quickly as they arrived, and she's back to being bubbly and upbeat again.

This ability to exercise willpower, no matter how vulnerable she finds herself, was put to the test when a year ago her marriage to production manager Glen Mulcahy ended.

At the time, she was into her stride presenting Seoige. The job provided a vital distraction, she admits, describing how going into work and getting kitted up with hair and make-up provided great bolstering, arming her to go to face the world, to pick up her mood and smile for the camera.

"I won't lie, the first week was tough. There was one day and I kind of thought, 'I'd love to just curl up now in bed and not get up today.' But I was delighted then when I did. Got out of the bed, had the shower and out the door, and I was fine. It was the initial getting up, and it was the fear of what people would say. But d'you know what? I was over that in five minutes.

"Everyone at work was great. It was only the odd person who would look at you with puppy-dog eyes and ask, 'Are you OK?' and they meant well. But most people actually avoided it and just said: 'OK, she's in here to work and just leave her be.' So people were actually really good.

"It was a lot easier than I thought," she goes on. "I actually thought it would be a lot more difficult. I think that, probably, a big part of our upbringing is: don't give anyone else the satisfaction of saying that you weren't able for it. Get out there and do your job and do it well. And I think that stuff is probably making me stronger all the time. So I'm glad that I got out of the bed."

Not only that, of course, but she had her big sister right beside her at all times. Grainne, she says, "was an absolute rock for me and knew exactly what I needed if I was going to get a bit down or get a bit sidetracked. She would more than likely slag me off and distract me and make me laugh, and do something silly which would take my mind off it. Which must have been, actually, in hindsight, quite exhausting for her. She was getting on with her own life, and her own work, but aware of me as well, going: 'OK, OK, Sile now is getting into this again, so pull her out of it. C'mon, c'mon.'"

She reflects on the things she learnt to appreciate. Her friends and her family, she says, have revealed themselves in a new light -- her parents particularly. "You kind of forget that your folks -- yes, they're your parents, but they are also people who have lived lives and had their own experiences. I just realised how cool they were, they're very wise and just very supportive and very accepting." She even offers a nod of acknowledgment to the press who, she says, were on the whole respectful of the situation, raising the issue of the separation with her, naturally, but not pressing too hard about the specifics.

"Obviously, there are two people involved here. There's me, and there was Glen. And he had his own stuff going on. So, I think people were very respectful of that, which was good."

Sile got married in a high-profile, starry ceremony and in the early days of the marriage effused publicly about her relationship.

"In terms of my personal life, I've actually become more private. Because I've realised the importance of it. And I cherish it more than ever. I kind of feel, in the past I said things which were true in the moment, and which were right -- so you can't regret anything that felt right to you right there in the then and there. But sometimes when you read them when things are different, when things have shifted and your life has changed, you kind of think, 'Maybe I could have held back.'''

But, as she admits herself, 2009 was a year of lessons. "I've been able to go back to the drawing board a lot and find out what I actually love doing, what makes me tick in everything. And I'm hoping to apply that more next year. Without sounding too corny about it, I'm really looking forward to 2010. I'm really, like, bring it on."

Sile Seoige is the voice of Meteor's new, innovative Irish-language voicemail service, available exclusively to all Meteor customers, see www.meteor.ie

- julia molony

Sunday Independent